Broken Open

Privately being strangled by my own grief, in blackness, I moved around the very people who survived "our loved ones suicide" in total SILENCE. I can remember standing next to a relative or friend when Brett's name was being mentioned. What came next was a quick are you okay look, or are you going to break look. The distortion of grief prevented them from being able to see me giving them the same look. As if somehow my mothers’ badge gave me grief preference. It didn’t. Grief was tearing through them as well. How could it not, they were all in love with the very same person I was in love with. He was one of us; he belonged to all of us! When I got “the look”, I stood up straighter, fake-smiled brighter, and moved in closer in hopes one of us would find the courage to initiate a deeper conversation about our suffering. That dialogue never came.

Our silence is finally over. It's been twenty days since the release of my book Grateful For Grief Seasons of Transformation. I am proud to say the book has created an outburst within the first demographic I aimed for. That would be my Tribe (my family and close friends).


THEY ARE BROKEN OPEN!

There are tears.............finally
There are assumptions.......finally
There are questions.........finally
There are answers...........finally
There are hugs and kisses...finally
There is laughter...........finally

Finally…………There is no more grief silence
Finally …….......WE ARE HEALING TOGETHER!

“I affirm that my book and more healing is on the way to the entire world who I consider an extension of my tribe. Surviving grief isn’t enough; it’s time to heal from grief.” ~Monique Antoinette

Marie Osmond is my sister!

After mailing 6 copies of my book to Oprah Winfrey and 3 to Tyler Perry yesterday, I returned to my tivo. Marie Osmond speaks out about her son's suicide is the caption. A wave of OMG rolls in. Really, is this really happening? Without another pause I mash down on the play button.

Marie's wet eyes are filled with vulnerability and a plea for Miss Winfrey to be gentle in how she extracts "the story". My heart rate slows down to a low rhythm, previously recorded on my cardiovascular tivo six years ago after surviving the suicide of my only son.
My entire insides remember the difficulty of allowing a simple thing like air travel where it need be in order to deliver human speech.
"It's been 8 months”, leaves her mouth.
At my 8 month mark, I was still in zombie land.

She continued speaking and my body continued remembering. Marie's mommy voice pierced my cold belly-go-numb-reflex spot. That's the spot that never leaves you, no matter how long it's been since the day you received what your mommy body already knew was true; your child died, and you weren’t there.

I rage with an extreme impulse to slam my body into the glass of my large living room window when Marie tells us she prepared her son's body for his funeral! Someone or something puts weight on my shoulders which keeps me glued to the couch before this impulse has an opportunity to live. I continue watching without sound in my ears. I remember visiting the mortuary and burial arrangements. I mash down on the stop button. I inhale, and then exhale slowly. That’s it…..I’m done!

I know that regardless of Marie and me never meeting each other, we are forever members of the same club. We are exactly the same, in this exact time and space because of grief. She is my sister! She is my family!

I love you Marie Osmond. I pray for your hurting, healing spirit as you carry yourself through this enormous storm! You are loved!
~Monique Antoinette

Joy!

Today is a day of sheer joy.

I write because I’m happy.
The journey has been long and there is still more land to travel.
This year has brought another layer to my life’s work.
My desire to get my book published turned into something much higher than I ever imagined.
A published book wasn’t enough.
Getting the message to a much larger group of people seems to be the platform where I am headed.

My book Grateful For Grief Seasons of Transformation has turned into the pursuit of becoming a talk show host.
The first goal was to launch a series of seminars called "Let's Talk About Grief from a Higher Point of Consciousness".

The turn of event occurred after not 1 or 2, but after 3 people strongly suggested that me publishing and promoting a book was cute but me promoting and marketing my myself and my message would much better serve a larger group people; the world!

So, here we go!
We are currently shooting footage for webisodes.
In the meantime we released a short intro unto You Tube.
Getting the world involved is the awareness of this message is thus far my highest occupation.

Privately, I think back to when I knew the book was on the way to the market place regardless of my privacy issues, and there was no way to stop it.
I mean I could have, I am operating out of free will.
But, I dare not interfere with a plan that was devised before I entered my earth suit.
My fearful conscious mind loves giving me a hard time when I try to Capricorn rationalize this.
My fearless unconscious soul remembers exactly what it is here to do.
Thank god, my soul is on auto pilot.

Peace filled,
Monique Antoinette

Shocked!!!

I raced before sunrise to my cell phone to the check the responses to my new grateful for grief face book page, many had confirmed and left messages about "what I was thinking yesterday", I wrote, I found the answers to why my son killed himself only after surrendering to grief. I received one comment that said, "it almost made her cry", another one said, "he was sorry for my loss and hoped I was feeling better".

At first I thought wow! Then my brain on it's own started adding the numbers of the club members for organization like, "Suicide Survivors". I believe the total of members were near a staggered one million.

This meant a staggering million people were directly or indirectly dealing with suicide related grief. My heart raced in needing to know what the numbers are for people dealing with the other kinds of grief not related to suicide?????

I know it doesn't matter-grief-is-grief. The heart doesn't know the difference.

I was shocked and overwhelmed in knowing that I may have written a book that may actually help bring some of these people help.

God please help me-help these people!
These are my people!

Monique Antoinette~

Not Waiting

I found this blog site after getting the new promo clip up on you tube.
Let's back up a bit.
My name is Monique Antoinette, I am a survivor of grief.
And only after losing my only son to suicide my entire life changed.
Only after surrendering to grief, did I find the answers to why this suicide happened.

After 9 months of journal entries I realized I had the makings of a book. I was sure that I was not the first person having a unique and unusual experience with grief. After this discovery, I was compelled to get this book to others who might come after me with variations of the same experience.

Relentless visits from my son induced a mental breakdown, my own suicide attempt and a time out within a mental institution. I only began to get the message my son was trying to leave me after I abandoned my lifetime religious recordings. What I was experiencing and what I had been taught as a child did not match. "People who kill themselves go to hell", wasn't true and I was now on a rampage to dispel this myth for myself. If this myth was true then how was it that the morning after my son took his last breath, he appeared in the bathroom, wrapped his arms around me and whispered in my ear that he, "was cool", "with god" and asking me to, " let him go"! My new mission was to understand this new contrast.

Within this acceptance I found the courage to honor the experience I was having, my writers voice and the truth. In the Fall of 2009, I completed my memoir entitled Grateful for Grief: Season's of Transformation. I began querying literary agents and decided while waiting, " I will not wait".

So here I am, at the beginning of a blogging journey. I am thrilled about sharing my thoughts and words about my wonderful experience with grief. For those of you out there experiencing grief right now trying to figure out how to keep breathing in order to stay alive, I woul d love to hear from you..........

Grateful for Grief,
Monique Antoinette